To Make it Count

I’ve struggled to hold on to memories of the places I’ve visited. Photos are great, but they bring me back to a posed moment, not an experience. Pictures provide memories of the people I was with, more than the trip itself. Souvenirs, bought in tacky tourist shops, are just objects, just bought for the sake of buying.

A good souvenir recalls an experience, unique to the place visited. It should recall visceral memory, in the same way certain sounds and smells do. From New York to Rome to Greece, I’ve searched for a good souvenir, and never found one. I have bought things; they have not satisfied. Until I visited Northern Ireland. In 2011 I spent a summer in Ireland, to study history and experience another country. One weekend of that summer was spent in Northern Ireland, visiting Giant’s Causeway, Derry, and Belfast. Northern Ireland has a fascinating and tragic history, too complicated to really even touch here. But long story short, Northern Ireland is part of the UK politically, not the Republic of Ireland, which means the currency is the British Pound.

This was something I had not accounted for on the journey there.

I didn’t have a lot of Sterling, but it was fine, some shops, especially around tourist areas, were willing to accept Euros. I rationed the Sterling I did have for our visit to a smaller town about an hour away from Belfast. We bar-hopped, through the small Irish town whose name I cannot remember. Buzzed, I dug through my wallet for my last pieces of Sterling at the crowded final bar of the night to buy my last beer. I paid in exact change.Wandering through the bar, mingling with both Irish and American people, my beer slowly disappearing. The Irish language professor with our group, halfway through his Solo cup of scotch, whipped everyone in the bar into song.By the end of the night, I found myself alone in the bathroom, empty Guinness pint glass in hand. A thought occurred to me. I rinsed out the pint glass in the sink, stuffed it full of paper towels, and shoved it into my purse.

We rode back to the hotel that night, Irish language professor still singing loudly. The pint glass survived the journey from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland, then the plane trip back to New York City, and finally Portland, Oregon.